Parallel Life (25 page)

‘Lisa said,' they chorused. Craig continued. ‘Mam bled in her head and the blood had nowhere to go, so they made a hole with a drill and got rid of the blood. They could have left it. She's already got holes.'

It was Billy's turn to pick up the baton. ‘There're two eyes, two ears, one mouth and two holes in your nose. The blood could have come out and no need for Black & Decker.'

‘Lisa told you about the drill?'

‘And Harrie,' Billy said. He was the taller of this pair of promising delinquents. ‘Harrie said they use ordinary tools because these things happen all the time.'

‘Said it to make us feel better,' Billy added. ‘But she got beat up.'

‘Your mother?'

They nodded as one man.

‘By whom?'

‘Me dad,' replied Craig. ‘We heard him. Then we came down and found me mam and we rang for the ambulance. Police came and looked after us and Daisy, then they gave us to Lisa.'

Lisa and Harrie entered the equation, both gasping for breath after chasing Craig and Billy for what had felt like a half marathon.

‘Oh, good,' said Hermione, smiling. ‘The backbenchers have decided to attend. Is there a three-line whip on?'

A whip? The boys' eyes widened further.

The old woman carried on: ‘We only need Tony Blair, then we can have
Gardeners' Question Time
.'

Lisa blinked. ‘Don't you mean . . .?'

‘I know what I'm talking about. There are more cauliflowers in the lower chamber than they sell in Morrisons. Organic produce? They should ditch the Brussels sprouts for a start, because we never needed Belgians. Who ever found a use for Belgians?'

‘Agatha Christie?' offered Harrie. ‘Hercules Poirot?'

But Hermione was on her high horse. ‘European Community? What did the Bundesbank say on Black Monday? Or was it a Monday or a Wednesday? Anyway, what I am saying—'

‘She's away,' shouted Eileen. ‘And so am I. If she's gone political and vegetarian, I am putting the kettle on.' She stamped out to the kitchen.

Lisa sank into a chair. ‘Harriet,' she said wearily. ‘Take them away and feed them.'

‘Can we borrow your whip?' Billy begged.

Harrie dragged the twins out of the room and closed the door.

Lisa cocked an ear. ‘She's letting them use your stairlift. Oh, Mother.'

Hermione clucked her tongue. ‘Annie's children?'

‘Yes.'

‘Lisa, they said their dad hit their mother. What on earth is going on?'

‘The police have questioned them. They asked me, too, but I said nothing, though I am fairly sure he did it. I want to wait until Annie wakes.'

‘How is she?'

Lisa sniffed back some moisture. ‘She's been brutally attacked. Doing better. She's still wired up like a power station, I believe, but they have to be careful with brain bleeds. They seem confident that she will make a full recovery, because she's given them a few tellings off.'

‘It's the gun, isn't it?'

Lisa sighed, stood up and walked to the rear dormer window. She looked out at her daughter's cabin and smiled sadly. ‘She's playing house in there with Billy, Craig and Daisy. Daisy is going to sleep in Harrie's room, and the boys are to have the spare. She's a good girl – Harriet, I mean.'

‘Lisa?'

‘Yes, Mother?'

‘Is he still out there?'

Lisa nodded. ‘They've road blocks, packs of dogs and all kinds of search parties, but he's gone to ground. Could be at Land's End for all we know.'

Eileen came in and began the business of getting Hermione out of bed. It was clearly a tiring process for both of them. They were going to need even more help, Lisa mused as she watched the two women. But, no matter what happened, Hermione would not go into a pending tray – that was the old woman's term for so-called care homes. Sometimes, she called them parking lots, dead ends or wheelie bins.

At last, Hermione was installed in her chair, breakfast in front of her, a towelling bib tied at the throat. Lisa swallowed. It was the loss of dignity that was most upsetting. This had been a great woman, an excellent jeweller, a public speaker, a person of some standing. Standing was a problem now. God, life was so sad.

The door opened. ‘Hey, missus?'

Hermione put down her cup. ‘Yes?'

‘Can we have a lend of one of your wheelchairs?'

Lisa started to laugh. She laughed until she almost wept.

‘Which one are you?' Hermione asked the boy.

‘Billy,' came the reply.

‘Billy, the answer is no.'

‘Right.'

‘Why did you want it?'

The boy shrugged. ‘Have you seen a film called
Back to the Future
?'

‘No.'

‘Never mind, then.' Billy withdrew.

‘They wanted to time travel,' explained Lisa, drying her eyes on a tissue.

The older woman thought about that. ‘Oh, right. They'll need the motorized one, then. I'll plug it in, shall I?'

Nine

Gus's visits to the house on Wigan Road were becoming less frequent, and, as he was to travel to New Zealand in a few days, Sheila Barton had to make a decision about Katherina Louisa Barford. Why had he been in that graveyard? What had made him weep? He was a man who kept his emotions under lock and key; he probably had a Chubb fixed to his soul, because he seldom gave anything away. Should she ask about the cemetery? Could she?

There were many graves in Tonge Cemetery. Some had almost made Sheila sob when she had read endless lists on cheap sandstone memorials, whole families wiped out in the nineteenth century by influenza or some such bug. Nobody cried for them any more, since no one remembered them.

Should she ask? After all, they were close in a way, because she cooked for him, listened to him when he became excited about maggots, honey, broad-spectrum antibiotics, antiseptic hand-cleansers. Yet he never made much of the houses in which he tested domestic bleach: homes of the rich and famous, folk who were seen on TV. He was an extraordinary man, she reminded herself. He was even stranger than she had thought at the beginning, when he had first arrived to inspect the roof space for his trains. Katherina. Who had she been? What had she meant to him?

He was eating roast beef, was delivering a lecture on why a person should not consume too much red meat. ‘Inside the bowel of most dead American males,' he was saying now, ‘there is often up to two pounds of undigested red meat.'

He was still eating. How could a person eat while producing a monologue on the subject of bowels?

‘We're not made to digest the flesh of milk-fed animals. When we were apes, we ate all the time – except when sleeping, of course. It was a berry here, a root there . . .' He droned on.

Who was Katherina?

‘Civilization gave us tables, chairs and language, so, in our less than infinite wisdom, we turned eating into a social occasion.'

His sister, perhaps? A married sister?

‘We have made ourselves ridiculous.' He wiped a drop of gravy from his lower lip.

Cousin, neighbour, lover? He was staring straight at her. Sometimes, she felt as if he could see through her, could hear what she was thinking. No. He was asking for the salt.

‘Too much salt is another problem,' he continued after using the cruet. ‘It can kill a small child.'

Sheila swallowed a mouthful of cranberry juice. On the few occasions when she had allowed herself to ask a simple question, he had not always given a straight answer. From time to time, he allowed some small detail to escape from his fortress, but it was usually eat, drink, go upstairs and play. It was as if he wore a ‘KEEP OFF THE GRASS' sign, or one that read ‘TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED'. Was he lonely? Did he miss having a proper family, one with whom he could share the unhealthy niceties he had just described? He was talking about sugar. She had heard it all before.

Gus stood up, patted his pockets in that mad professor way he seemed to have acquired. ‘I'll just . . . er . . .'

He left the room, presumably to ‘just . . . er'. A ‘just . . . er' could be a visit to the bathroom, three hours in the loft, or even a goodbye. Yes, he often left the house after a ‘just . . . er'.

Sheila carried the debris from the meal into her kitchen. He had gone upstairs. Often, he stayed until she had gone to bed, and she wondered how a man of such obvious intelligence could spend so much time watching little engines pulling little carriages over little lines. There were miniature bridges, trees, a few cows and houses, but it was still just a train set. Perhaps the monotony allowed him space and time to think about the cultures he was growing in the lab. Or did he indulge in thoughts and memories about Katherina?

‘I'll probably never find out,' she told the Fairy Liquid container.

After washing up, she returned to the living room and found him standing with his back to the empty grate. It was too warm for a fire, but he positioned himself just as her father once had, in the place from which heads of households delivered life's agenda.

‘I thought you were upstairs,' she said, hoping that he hadn't heard her talking to herself.

‘I was,' he replied. ‘But I came down again.'

Of course he had come down again, she told herself inwardly with an unusual degree of impatience. Sometimes, he treated her like a child.

‘About New Zealand,' he began.

Excitement stirred. Did he want a travelling companion?

‘I'm not going,' he said, his words measured, ‘but all the members of my family believe that I am going.'

Sheila sat down and kept quiet for the moment.

‘It is easiest if they think I am flying out of the country,' he continued. ‘I am, in reality, going into hospital.'

A hand flew of its own accord to her throat. ‘Why?' she managed.

‘Oh, just for an exploratory procedure.'

Sheila swallowed nervously. Why was he telling her? Why not his family?

‘I may need things while I am in there,' he said. ‘Toiletries and so forth. I prefer to use my own towels, and I shall require a change of nightwear. Also some washing – if you don't mind.'

Her brain was racing. ‘No, I don't mind. Not at all.' Exploratory? What were they exploring for? Not buried treasure, that was certain. ‘The private hospital?' she asked.

He nodded. ‘Though some of those can be filthy, you know. Still, I have to take the chance. Otherwise . . .'

‘Otherwise?'

‘I want to know what's wrong with me and whether it can be remedied.'

‘Ah. Yes, of course.' She couldn't even ask him about the symptoms, let alone enquire about a woman in a grave. But what if anything happened to him? She would be the one with the bad news, wouldn't she? Although, knowing him as she did, he was likely to have told the hospital what to do in the event of . . . She didn't want to think about it. He was her only regular visitor, the only person in her life. To be completely alone again would be unbearable. But she mustn't think of herself. ‘How long have you known?'

‘About the operation? Oh, two or three weeks. New Zealand no longer expects me. Which is a pity, as I was getting somewhere with the monoflor bees.'

Dear God, the man was obsessed. Sheila thought for a moment about Lisa Compton-Milne, found herself beginning to understand the woman. She understood Gus, too. He wouldn't want strangers visiting his hospital room, because there would be nothing to say. The man had a family, but he didn't know them – and, by the same token, they didn't know him. ‘Yes, I'll do all that,' she told him.

‘Thank you.'

Sheila swallowed. ‘Gus?' He had invited her to call him by his abbreviated Christian name, and she had finally found the courage to do it.

‘Yes?'

She should have kept her mouth shut, should never have started this. ‘Do you . . . Do you ever feel sad?'

‘Yes.'

She thought he had decided to be monosyllabic again and was surprised when he continued after a couple of seconds. ‘When I see my son and can't help him. My daughter should have gone to Oxford, but she stayed with him. Sometimes, I look at Lisa and wish she could have been . . . wish I could have . . . Things should have been better – different.'

Sheila nodded.

‘My mother will soon be unable to walk. I wish I could have found a cure for that. They think I see nothing, but I am well aware of the situation at home. My wife has sought consolation elsewhere, and I cannot blame her. We are mere animals, and we have our needs.' He smiled at her. ‘You are an excellent friend, Sheila. This has been a refuge for me.'

It felt as if he were saying goodbye. She swallowed hard again. ‘Are you in pain?'

‘Yes.'

‘All the time?'

‘No.'

He had reverted to words of one syllable. She watched as he took a small piece of paper from his wallet. ‘The address and telephone number of the hospital. I shall be in room eleven. Don't tell anyone where I am. Please?' He placed the paper on the table. ‘Nobody must know. I am in New Zealand.'

She nodded. When he walked to the door, she did not turn to look at him. His footsteps sounded hollow in the hall, as did the crash of the outer door as it closed behind him. Cold fingers wrapped themselves around her heart, and she gasped. Everything was so loud, so empty, so bloody lonely. She picked up the scrap of paper. On the reverse he had written an instruction – she was to sell the trains in the event of his death.

As quickly as she could, Sheila Barton ran to the front of her house. For some stupid reason, she was suddenly desperate to find out about Katherina. It was a foreign-sounding name, almost Russian. But when she reached the bottom of the stone steps that led up to her house from the pavement, she saw the Mini making its way towards town. Slowly, she turned and climbed back to her door.